Red Hammer 1994

The Russians’ weakness? An overreliance on fixed, ground-intercept control sites for their airborne interceptors, a prime target for the B-1B’s supersonic SRAM II missiles. These babies would be dispensed to blast gaping nuclear holes through the VPVO’s architecture. In the end, when all was said and done, the issue would be how extensive was the damage to the air defense infrastructure before the bombers arrived. The US SIOP, or nuclear war plan, called for ICBMs and SLBMs to soften up Russian defenses by breaching broad avenues of devastation for the bombers. But that was a full SIOP. Anything less would leave the defenders essentially intact.

“Fuel consumption?” Buck began firing questions to shake his crew back to life. He had to start building them to an emotional peak before they entered the fringes of the Mainstay’s radar picket line. That’s where Ivan would be his freshest, and they must be too. If they could punch through that firstline of defense, they had half a chance of completing their mission alive.

“Right on target. Looks good,” Joe answered smartly.

“What’s the CPA to the Pole based on this heading?”

“No more than two hundred miles.”

Buck glanced over his right shoulder, even though he spoke through the intercom.

“Defensive Electronics?”

Johnson sat up straight. “Built-in test reports all systems up.”

“Johnson, remember they’re going to screw with their search radar frequencies. Don’t expect to see anything familiar. They might even use the AWACs, figuring we would have them blanked in our ESM receiver.”

“I got you, Buck.”

“And they might have aircraft farther north than we expect.”

“I know.” Johnson’s tone expressed his displeasure at the tutorial.

“Ledermeyer, everything check out OK?”

“That’s affirmative, Buck.”

“How about remote arming?”

“Already taken care of. What’s wrong? Don’t think I’ll be around?”

Buck didn’t answer. His thoughts had quickly turned back to the mission. Every time he did, his breathing accelerated. Take it easy, he warned himself.

The clear evening sky began to give way to thickening clouds that encircled them like wisps of angel’s hair. Nothing too threatening, thought Buck. Momentarily satisfied, he settled back and mentally created a map of central Russia. Slowly the key features sprang into sharp focus. He and his crew would drop down to two hundred feet as soon as they left the polar icepack, or sooner if they detected faint emissions from the Mainstay. The benefit of sensitive electronic support measures, or ESM gear, was that you could detect an adversary at over one and one half times the distance that he could get you. That’s when the chess game started. Do you avoid detection at all costs? Or do you tease the Mainstay then slightly alter course and hopefully slip by misdirected interceptors. The Russian pilots would get one pass before having to break off and hunt for other prey. No one knew the best strategy, especially when placed in the van. Buck didn’t relish being the lead plane through the gauntlet looming only hours ahead.

After skimming four hundred miles over the Kara Sea, they would traverse the Obskaya Guba, an appendix-shaped, seawater gulf protruding deep into the Motherland. Buck would stick close to the shoreline, praying the distinctive contrast between land and water would play havoc with the Russians’ search-and-look-down/shoot-down radars. Making landfall, he would most likely veer sharply to starboard, making a sprint for the Urals, attempting to seek shelter by hugging the protective eastern slope. The next seven hundred miles would severely tax his skills as a pilot. Switching off the terrain-following guidance system to protect against autonomous jammers sprinkled throughout the mountains, he would manually wind in and out of deep canyons and narrow valleys, skimming the earth as low as one hundred feet. He had flown the perilous route so many times in the simulators, it was burned into his brain. The 3-D display at the training center was breathtaking in its clarity; the multiple shades of brown and gray were brought to life by dual light sources reflecting off the irregular granite surfaces. By the end of the hour, he was drenched in sweat. At first he had always bounced off a canyon wall within the first few minutes, but through patience and hours of practice, he had managed to score well enough to be certified for this class-one mission, the most difficult rating in STRATCOM. If for some reason he bought it, Joe was ordered to break off and hit secondary targets along a less-demanding path. The less experienced copilot wouldn’t stand a chance at the primary route.